Mortal: Starting by joining the Falling Cloud Sect

As soon as Zhou Qing entered the Cloud Dream Secret Realm, he felt a sudden blur before his eyes, and he only felt better after landing on the ground again.

Looking around, he found himself atop a mountain peak.

His fellow disciples who had entered the secret realm with him had long since disappeared.

Standing atop the mountain peak, gazing into the distance, all that can be seen are continuous mountain ranges stretching to the horizon, as if this secret realm is boundless.

After determining his location, Zhou Qing followed the instructions on the jade slip given to him by Song Yu, and, carrying the Su Yanwei, headed to Wu Tan Valley, the place where the Wu Ling Lian might grow.

Although Wutan Valley has "pool" in its name, there is actually no pool in the valley. Instead, there is a large swampy depression filled with miasma.

This swampy depression spans several hundred miles in circumference.

Before entering the valley, Zhou Qing took out a jade bottle from his storage bag, poured out a pill to dispel miasma, and swallowed it.

With his current cultivation level, he cannot ignore the miasma, so he must take one pill every hour, otherwise he will vomit and have diarrhea, which will affect his journey or greatly reduce his strength.

As Zhou Qing ventured deeper into Wutan Valley, he felt a nauseating stench permeating the air, and his vision became increasingly narrow due to the thick miasma.

Beyond a foot, everything was already blurry and indistinct. He could no longer pass safely by sight alone; he had to use his divine sense to find his way at all times.

Just then, Zhou Qing's divine sense suddenly detected a large number of objects moving towards him.

The objects are very small, but countless.

Zhou Qing quickly hid to the side, activating the Su Yan Veil to conceal his presence.

With such a massive number, if it were a demon beast, he would surely die if he faced it head-on.

Fortunately, they did not discover Zhou Qing's hiding place and continued to proceed along their predetermined route.

Gradually, tiny blue specks of light appeared before Zhou Qing's eyes, like stars in a dark sky.

As the light spots increased and became denser, Zhou Qing was able to see the true appearance of the objects.

It turned out to be a huge swarm of ants moving forward!

These ants have two pairs of wings on their backs, and their bodies are made of dense, dark blue crystals, as if they were carved from natural ice crystals.

"Celestial Crystal Ants! I never expected them to be Celestial Crystal Ants."

Zhou Qing immediately recognized the type of ant. This type of ant had been briefly introduced in the sect's "Luoyun Chronicles," and he was overjoyed.

The Celestial Crystal Ant is an ancient and wondrous insect that has long since disappeared from the outside world. It is the most powerful of all flying ant-like spirit insects, even more powerful than the Iron Fire Ant in the Void Heaven Palace.

Their crystalline bodies are incredibly hard, impervious to blades and spears, water and fire, and unafraid of almost all types of magical attacks or any poisons in the world, because they themselves are masters of poison.

Their mouthparts contain an innate cold poison; if an ordinary cultivator gets even a little bit of it, he will feel his meridians become ice-cold and his body will tremble.

This is why they can move freely in the Black Pool Valley, which is filled with poisonous miasma.

To kill them completely, you have to shatter their bodies. However, their bodies are not so easy to break, because they also have abnormal defenses that gradually increase with their level.

However, according to the book, if you want to get rid of the Crystal Ants, you can attack their wings, which are their weak points.

As the swarm of crystal ants flew past, Zhou Qing was torn between his inner thoughts and his own, but in the end, he made a tough decision and gave chase.

If one could obtain and tame some of these spirit insects, and if they were properly cultivated and bred to a certain scale, he could basically do whatever he wanted during his Foundation Establishment stage.

The temptation is immense!

Of course, he must have had some idea of ​​what was going on before he dared to chase after them so rashly.

This group of Heavenly Crystal Ants is only a Level 1 demon beast, and the level of the Heavenly Crystal Ant colony is entirely determined by the queen ant in the colony. Based on this, it can be inferred that the queen ant is also only a Level 1 demon beast.

Therefore, their current speed is absolutely no match for Zhou Qing, who is fleeing at full speed in the Imperial Inkscale Boat.

To tame a Celestial Ant, you must obtain a Celestial Ant Queen.

The Celestial Ant colony employs a multi-queen system, meaning a single colony has multiple queens, increasing their chances of capturing more targets and achieving success.

If a colony only has one queen ant, Zhou Qing would never go there under any circumstances. It's easy to imagine that if he took away the only queen ant, they would definitely fight him to the death.

Following the swarm of crystal ants, Zhou Qing entered an extremely deep cave.

As Zhou Qing ventured deeper into the cave, he saw that the ceiling was covered with thick stalactites, each as thick as his waist, and the deeper he went, the denser they became.

As they walked further in, Zhou Qing suddenly heard a loud rumbling sound of falling rocks.

Zhou Qing instinctively thought the cave had collapsed, so he quickly dodged to both sides. He then quickly took out the Yuanling Shield, activated it, and formed a blue protective shield to protect himself.

A few breaths later, Zhou Qing finally understood that the sound was coming from deeper within the cave, and he even discovered a dazzling light in this deep cave.

Zhou Qing suppressed his aura to the lowest level, quietly crept over, and then darted behind a pile of stones.

He used all his skills, including the Concealing Qi Technique and the Hiding Form Technique, and pushed the Su Yan Wei (a type of protective barrier) to its maximum potential. He lay motionless behind the pile of stones, as if he had become one with it.

After doing all this, Zhou Qing finally had time to take a closer look inside the cave hall, and what he saw shocked him.

A natural karst cave hall, several dozen feet in circumference.

The walls of the hall are densely covered with huge natural crystals, some blue, some purple, and some pink.

Inside the hall, there were several ant nests shaped like small mountains. The swarms of Sky Crystal Ants gathered into three large groups, like three army groups, guarding the ant nests behind them.

What they had to be wary of was the golden-crowned king snake in front of them, which was two or three zhang long and as thick as a water bucket.

The golden crowned king snake gets its name from the three small, raised yellow bumps on its head.

Its appearance is quite similar to the Rooster-Crested Flood Dragon in the Chaotic Star Sea legend, but its strength is far inferior to that of the Rooster-Crested Flood Dragon. In Zhou Qing's opinion, this Golden-Crested King Snake should have already entered the ranks of second-level demon beasts, with strength equivalent to the early stage of Foundation Establishment for human cultivators.

Logically speaking, it is highly unlikely that the Golden Crown King Serpent and the Heavenly Crystal Ant would fight, because the two monsters are completely unrelated in terms of their living habits and the food they hunt.

There's only one reason: they must be fighting over something!

Thinking of this, Zhou Qing quickly scanned the entire cave hall and, sure enough, not far behind the Tianjing Ant Nest, he found a spiritual herb with black petals that shimmered with a faint purple light.

"Black Spirit Lotus! Ha! It's like finding a needle in a haystack. I never thought I'd find the Black Spirit Lotus here after searching for so long in Black Pool Valley. No wonder the Golden Crown King Serpent and the Heavenly Crystal Ant were confronting each other here; it turns out it was all for this Black Spirit Lotus."

Zhou Qing was overjoyed and secretly plotted the possibility of seizing the Black Spirit Lotus amidst the chaos.

"Whether it's the Celestial Crystal Ant swarm or the Golden Crown King Serpent, I can't handle either of them with my current strength. For now, the only option is to wait until they start fighting over the Black Spirit Lotus before taking any action."

At that moment, the king cobra, which had been lying in wait, suddenly launched an attack.